Why do foreigners find French grammar hard?
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d’oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France’s past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.
French is foreign to the Asian countries!
A major world language, French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 84 countries that share the official use or teaching of French. French is also one of six official languages used in the United Nations. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (provinces of Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick as well as other Francophone regions); Belgium (Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region); western Switzerland (Romandy—all or part of the cantons of Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud, Valais); Monaco; parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont); northwestern Italy (autonomous region of Aosta Valley); and various communities elsewhere.
So what overwhelms people?
Have you ever wondered why French grammar seems so hard? Often foreigners find French Grammar very hard to learn. On OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, there are lots of movies available in the French language, however, due to the language barrier, we often miss to watch such beautiful dramas and all. But why are we so scared about it? It may be that we are just held back by what many of us fear.
It may be that Learning French just… seems… hard but actually, it is not.
I mean, it is just another of the various Romance languages spoken in countries where many of us might want to visit! Let’s look at some reasons why it seems hard to learn
A few.. let's start with the first!
Reason number 1: So many numbers of verb tenses!
When you speak in the present tense, verbs are pretty self-explanatory. You just have to memorize the basic rules, and you’re good to go! But when you want to tell a story or maybe a scenario that has happened in the past or something which will be happening tomorrow, it requires different verb tenses. This is the case with English too however we don’t find it difficult as we have been raised learning this. Learning the rules as an adult is surely a little overwhelming at first.
Silent treatment!
Reason number 2: So many silent letters!
You might have seen words such as beaucoup (a lot, many), which is pronounced as “bō-kü” Or the word roux (red), in which the x is silent. French has so many silent letters, which seems difficult to learn as we do not understand which letter to pronounce and which should be ignored? This requires plenty of memorizing.
Confusing Genders
Reason number 3: Every noun has a gender!
In French languages, all nouns are either masculine or feminine. Masculine nouns are preceded by un (a) or le (the), and feminine nouns are preceded by une (a) or la (the).
Ohh… Seems scary!!
Sentence formations
Reason number 4: Different sentence formation than English!
In English, the adjective comes before the noun but in French, it comes after the verb. For example: In English, we say, “His hairy ears are disgusting.”
French people will say, “Ses oreilles poilues sont dégoûtantes.”
The adjective, “hairy,” or poilues, comes before the noun in English but after the verb in French. This is just an example of how French sentence formation is different from English.
The Accent!
Reason number 5: Accent marks!
Thank God, English or Hindi has zero accent marks, which makes them easy to speak easily!
When you try to pronounce words such as français (French) or préférée (favourite), you might shy away from trying to speak them aloud. What are those accent marks all about? What do they mean, and how are we supposed to know when to use which one? It is slightly difficult.
Finally, the motivating word!
French Grammar just seems to be difficult but actually, it is not. After all, you are not alone. Many people are afraid to learn French but it becomes easy with some basic rules and tips and you can get ready to overcome your fears.
Remember if you are an English speaker or know any of the Romance languages such as Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish or Swedish you can master French despite all difficulties in 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours)